Walt Lastewka
Encyclopedia
Walter Thomas "Walt" Lastewka, PC
(born October 11, 1940) is a Canadian
politician
. He was a member of the Canadian House of Commons
from 1993 to 2006, representing the Ontario
riding
of St. Catharines
as a member of the Liberal Party
.
and was educated at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (known at the time as Ryerson Technical Institute) in Toronto, receiving a diploma in 1963. He was hired as an industrial engineer by General Motors in the same year, was promoted to supervisor of industrial engineering in 1967, and held several managerial positions before his retirement in 1992. He completed the three-week-long University of Western Ontario
Executive Program in 1981. Lastewka has been involved in several community activities, including serving as a director of the United Way
and as a trustee of Brock University
. He is also a former director and parish chairman for St. John's Ukrainian Church. In the early 1990s, he was head of the St. Catharines Promotion Task Force.
Gilbert Parent
in every election between 1974 and 1988. He was vice-president of organization for the Ontario Liberal Party
from 1979 to 1981, and chaired provincial campaigns for Jim Bradley and Harry Pelissero
. He was elected to parliament in the 1993 election
, defeating incumbent Progressive Conservative
Ken Atkinson
by a significant margin.
He served as parliamentary secretary
to the Minister of Industry
from 1997 to 1999, and as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services
from 2003 to 2006. Before the 2004 election
, he held special responsibility for matters relating to procurement review.
A Hamilton Spectator newspaper report from 1996 described Lastewka as "one of the most hardworking, effective parliamentarians" in office. He spearheaded a movement to clean up the St. Catharines Twelve Mile Creek during his first term, and used his knowledge of government bureaucracy to expedite the city's bid to host the 1999 World Rowing Championships. Lastewka supported Paul Martin
's bid to succeed Jean Chrétien
as Liberal Party leader during the 1990s, and was one of the first Liberal MPs to call for Chrétien's resignation in 2000. It was reported that a 2002 telephone conversation between Lastewka and Chrétien turned heated, with Lastewka claiming that the Liberal government under Chrétien hadn't "done a damn thing" for Niagara.
In 1995, Lastewka criticized the Government of Canada for attempting to deport an accused Nazi war criminal named Johann Dueck. The government had asserted that Dueck was the deputy chief of a police unit that participated in Nazi atrocities, and charged him with having obtained Canadian citizenship in 1948 by concealing his past. Dueck denied the charges, and said that he had been conscripted by the Nazis at gunpoint to work as a translator. Lastewka argued that if Dueck was to be charged, it should have been under a 1987 law that allows accused Nazi war criminals to be tried domestically in Canada. Referring to the deportation procedure, he was quoted as saying "I feel very uncomfortable that we have to go back 50 years to correct whatever happened then [...] My heart goes out to them and their family and their friends". He pledged to help the family in any way he could. Some interpreted Lastewka's comments as favouring a lenient approach toward war criminals; he was criticized by the Toronto Star
newspaper and some Canadian Jewish leaders, including Sol Littman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
. The charges against Dueck were dismissed in 1998, when Justice Marc Noel found that the government had not proven he was a war criminal or even a member of the police unit in question. He was not deported, and a subsequent editorial in the Globe and Mail newspaper described him as having been "clearly innocent of the charges".
Also in 1995, Lastewka petitioned the government for an inquiry into the way crown officials handled the prosecution of Karla Homolka
. Homolka, a former resident of St. Catharines, was given a twelve-year sentence through a plea-bargain despite having assisting her husband, Paul Bernardo
, in the rape and murder of two young girls. Lastewka argued that the sentence was far too lenient, and called for a review of the negotiation process. He later called for Senator
Michel Biron
to resign in 2005, after Biron wrote a letter opposing restrictions on Homolka following her release. Lastewka said that he was "appalled" by Biron's letter, and wrote that the Senator displayed "complete and utter disregard for the families of Kristen French
and Leslie Mahaffy
", Homolka's victims. In light of these and other criticisms, Biron offered an apology.
Lastewka holds socially conservative
views on some issues. He voted against Bill C-33 (1996), which amended the Canadian Human Rights Act
to include sexual orientation as a prohibited basis for discrimination. He later voted against Bill C38 (2005), which legalized same-sex marriage
rights in Canada. However, he later argued that the Canadian government should accept the legal status of same-sex marriages and not revisit the issue. Local gay rights activist Ted Mouradian endorsed Lastewka in 2005, arguing that he was a better candidate than his Conservative
opponent.
He was narrowly defeated by Conservative Rick Dykstra
in the 2006 federal election
. The margin of defeat was only 244 votes, one of the smallest in the country.
On March 22, 2007, Lastewka was acclaimed as the Liberal Party
candidate for St. Catharines in the next federal election
. However, Lastewka was defeated by an increased margin in the 2008 election.
. Italicized expenditures from elections after 1997 refer to submitted totals, and are presented when the final reviewed totals are not available. Expenditures from 1997 refer to submitted totals.
Queen's Privy Council for Canada
The Queen's Privy Council for Canada ), sometimes called Her Majesty's Privy Council for Canada or simply the Privy Council, is the full group of personal consultants to the monarch of Canada on state and constitutional affairs, though responsible government requires the sovereign or her viceroy,...
(born October 11, 1940) is a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
. He was a member of the Canadian House of Commons
Canadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
from 1993 to 2006, representing the Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
riding
Electoral district (Canada)
An electoral district in Canada, also known as a constituency or a riding, is a geographical constituency upon which Canada's representative democracy is based...
of St. Catharines
St. Catharines (electoral district)
St. Catharines is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1968.It consists of the part of the City of St. Catharines lying north of a line drawn from west to east along St. Paul Street West, St...
as a member of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
.
Early life and career
Lastewka was born in Montreal, QuebecQuebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
and was educated at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (known at the time as Ryerson Technical Institute) in Toronto, receiving a diploma in 1963. He was hired as an industrial engineer by General Motors in the same year, was promoted to supervisor of industrial engineering in 1967, and held several managerial positions before his retirement in 1992. He completed the three-week-long University of Western Ontario
University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario is a public research university located in London, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus covers of land, with the Thames River cutting through the eastern portion of the main campus. Western administers its programs through 12 different faculties and...
Executive Program in 1981. Lastewka has been involved in several community activities, including serving as a director of the United Way
United Way of Canada
United Way of Canada is the national organization for the 117 autonomous, volunteer-based United Ways across Canada. United Way campaigns raise money for local groups that address community issues and problems, and the national organization provides leadership, services and coordination to the...
and as a trustee of Brock University
Brock University
Brock University is a comprehensive university located in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Brock offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree programs that include co-op and other experiential learning opportunities to an enrolment of over 17,000 full-time students.The enabling legislation is...
. He is also a former director and parish chairman for St. John's Ukrainian Church. In the early 1990s, he was head of the St. Catharines Promotion Task Force.
Political career
Lastewka joined the St. Catharines branch of the Liberal Party in 1972, and worked as campaign manager to federal MPMember of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Gilbert Parent
Gilbert Parent
Gilbert "Gib" Parent, PC was a Canadian Member of Parliament. He is best known in his role of Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons between 1994 and 2001....
in every election between 1974 and 1988. He was vice-president of organization for the Ontario Liberal Party
Ontario Liberal Party
The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has formed the Government of Ontario since the provincial election of 2003. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and...
from 1979 to 1981, and chaired provincial campaigns for Jim Bradley and Harry Pelissero
Harry Pelissero
Harry Pelissero is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He sat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1987 to 1990, as a member of the Ontario Liberal Party....
. He was elected to parliament in the 1993 election
Canadian federal election, 1993
The Canadian federal election of 1993 was held on October 25 of that year to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 35th Parliament of Canada. Fourteen parties competed for the 295 seats in the House at that time...
, defeating incumbent Progressive Conservative
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....
Ken Atkinson
Ken Atkinson
-References:...
by a significant margin.
He served as parliamentary secretary
Parliamentary Secretary
A Parliamentary Secretary is a member of a Parliament in the Westminster system who assists a more senior minister with his or her duties.In the parliamentary systems of several Commonwealth countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, it is customary for the prime minister to...
to the Minister of Industry
Minister of Industry (Canada)
The Minister of Industry is the Minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet who is responsible for overseeing the federal government's economic development and corporate affairs department, Industry Canada. The Minister of Industry is also the minister responsible for Statistics Canada...
from 1997 to 1999, and as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services
Minister of Public Works and Government Services (Canada)
The Minister of Public Works and Government Services is the Minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet who is responsible for overseeing the federal government's "common service organization" , an expansive department responsible for the internal servicing and administration of the federal...
from 2003 to 2006. Before the 2004 election
Canadian federal election, 2004
The Canadian federal election, 2004 , was held on June 28, 2004 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 38th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin lost its majority, but was able to form a minority government after the elections...
, he held special responsibility for matters relating to procurement review.
A Hamilton Spectator newspaper report from 1996 described Lastewka as "one of the most hardworking, effective parliamentarians" in office. He spearheaded a movement to clean up the St. Catharines Twelve Mile Creek during his first term, and used his knowledge of government bureaucracy to expedite the city's bid to host the 1999 World Rowing Championships. Lastewka supported Paul Martin
Paul Martin
Paul Edgar Philippe Martin, PC , also known as Paul Martin, Jr. is a Canadian politician who was the 21st Prime Minister of Canada, as well as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada....
's bid to succeed Jean Chrétien
Jean Chrétien
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien , known commonly as Jean Chrétien is a former Canadian politician who was the 20th Prime Minister of Canada. He served in the position for over ten years, from November 4, 1993 to December 12, 2003....
as Liberal Party leader during the 1990s, and was one of the first Liberal MPs to call for Chrétien's resignation in 2000. It was reported that a 2002 telephone conversation between Lastewka and Chrétien turned heated, with Lastewka claiming that the Liberal government under Chrétien hadn't "done a damn thing" for Niagara.
In 1995, Lastewka criticized the Government of Canada for attempting to deport an accused Nazi war criminal named Johann Dueck. The government had asserted that Dueck was the deputy chief of a police unit that participated in Nazi atrocities, and charged him with having obtained Canadian citizenship in 1948 by concealing his past. Dueck denied the charges, and said that he had been conscripted by the Nazis at gunpoint to work as a translator. Lastewka argued that if Dueck was to be charged, it should have been under a 1987 law that allows accused Nazi war criminals to be tried domestically in Canada. Referring to the deportation procedure, he was quoted as saying "I feel very uncomfortable that we have to go back 50 years to correct whatever happened then [...] My heart goes out to them and their family and their friends". He pledged to help the family in any way he could. Some interpreted Lastewka's comments as favouring a lenient approach toward war criminals; he was criticized by the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
newspaper and some Canadian Jewish leaders, including Sol Littman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...
. The charges against Dueck were dismissed in 1998, when Justice Marc Noel found that the government had not proven he was a war criminal or even a member of the police unit in question. He was not deported, and a subsequent editorial in the Globe and Mail newspaper described him as having been "clearly innocent of the charges".
Also in 1995, Lastewka petitioned the government for an inquiry into the way crown officials handled the prosecution of Karla Homolka
Karla Homolka
Karla Leanne Homolka, also known as Karla Leanne Teale , is a Canadian serial killer. She attracted worldwide media attention when she was convicted of manslaughter following a plea bargain in the 1991 and 1992 rape-murders of two Ontario teenage girls, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, as well as...
. Homolka, a former resident of St. Catharines, was given a twelve-year sentence through a plea-bargain despite having assisting her husband, Paul Bernardo
Paul Bernardo
Paul Kenneth Bernardo, also known as Paul Jason Teale , is a Canadian serial killer and rapist, known for the sexual assaults and murders he committed with his wife Karla Homolka and the serial rapes he committed in Scarborough.-Early life:Bernardo's mother, Marilyn, was the adopted daughter of a...
, in the rape and murder of two young girls. Lastewka argued that the sentence was far too lenient, and called for a review of the negotiation process. He later called for Senator
Canadian Senate
The Senate of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the House of Commons, and the monarch . The Senate consists of 105 members appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister...
Michel Biron
Michel Biron
Michel Biron, CM was a Canadian Senator. He was appointed by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, on the advice of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, to represent the Canadian senatorial division of Mille Isles, Quebec as a member of the Liberal Party of Canada, on October 4, 2001. Biron was appointed a...
to resign in 2005, after Biron wrote a letter opposing restrictions on Homolka following her release. Lastewka said that he was "appalled" by Biron's letter, and wrote that the Senator displayed "complete and utter disregard for the families of Kristen French
Kristen French
Kristen Dawn French was a Canadian Catholic school girl and the victim of a gruesome and much-publicized murder.-Biography:...
and Leslie Mahaffy
Leslie Mahaffy
Leslie Erin Mahaffy was a teenaged female student, resident of Burlington, Ontario, Canada, who was murdered by serial killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. Mahaffy's kidnapping was one in a series of disappearances of Ontario schoolgirls in the early 1990s, including Kristen French, also a...
", Homolka's victims. In light of these and other criticisms, Biron offered an apology.
Lastewka holds socially conservative
Social conservatism
Social Conservatism is primarily a political, and usually morally influenced, ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values. Social conservatism is a form of authoritarianism often associated with the position that the federal government should have a greater role...
views on some issues. He voted against Bill C-33 (1996), which amended the Canadian Human Rights Act
Canadian Human Rights Act
The Canadian Human Rights Act is a statute originally passed by the Parliament of Canada in 1977 with the express goal of extending the law to ensure equal opportunity to individuals who may be victims of discriminatory practices based on a set prohibited grounds such as gender, disability, or...
to include sexual orientation as a prohibited basis for discrimination. He later voted against Bill C38 (2005), which legalized same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage in Canada
On July 20, 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world and the first country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act which provided a gender-neutral marriage definition...
rights in Canada. However, he later argued that the Canadian government should accept the legal status of same-sex marriages and not revisit the issue. Local gay rights activist Ted Mouradian endorsed Lastewka in 2005, arguing that he was a better candidate than his Conservative
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...
opponent.
He was narrowly defeated by Conservative Rick Dykstra
Rick Dykstra
Richard "Rick" Dykstra is a Canadian politician. He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 2006 federal election, for the Ontario riding of St. Catharines. Dykstra is a member of the Conservative Party of Canada...
in the 2006 federal election
Canadian federal election, 2006
The 2006 Canadian federal election was held on January 23, 2006, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 39th Parliament of Canada. The Conservative Party of Canada won the greatest number of seats: 40.3% of seats, or 124 out of 308, up from 99 seats in 2004, and 36.3% of votes:...
. The margin of defeat was only 244 votes, one of the smallest in the country.
On March 22, 2007, Lastewka was acclaimed as the Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
candidate for St. Catharines in the next federal election
40th Canadian federal election
The 2008 Canadian federal election was held on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 40th Canadian Parliament after the previous parliament had been dissolved by the Governor General on September 7, 2008...
. However, Lastewka was defeated by an increased margin in the 2008 election.
Electoral record
All electoral information is taken from Elections CanadaElections Canada
Elections Canada is an independent, non-partisan agency reporting directly to the Parliament of Canada. Its ongoing responsibility is to ensure that Canadians can exercise their choices in federal elections and referenda through an open and impartial process...
. Italicized expenditures from elections after 1997 refer to submitted totals, and are presented when the final reviewed totals are not available. Expenditures from 1997 refer to submitted totals.